Forecasting Lab - 17 September 2003

Description: This lab focuses on locating data, geting these data into a form suitable for analyzing, and analyzing economic data.

Goals: In this lab, you will

  1. Locate economic data on the internet
  2. Retrieve economic data from the internet
  3. Read text data into a spreadsheet
  4. Estimate trend growth and seasonal factors using regression models
We will locate, manipulate and analyze employment data. The lab focuses on the data series:
Total Private Average Hourly Earnings of Production - Workers Not Seasonally Adjusted - CEU0500000006
  1. Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) web site wher ethey provide access to Employment Hours and Earnings Data (http://stats.bls.gov/ces/home.htm)
  2. Follow the link for Most Requested series. This starts a data access applet.
  3. From this menu, select the variable Total Private Average Hourly Earnings of Production - Workers Not Seasonally Adjusted - CEU0500000006 from 1985 through 2003. Select Column Format and Text format.
  4. Read this data into Excel
  5. Graph the time path of the data
  6. Using the regression wizard, estimate the secular trend component of the series and interpret the results
  7. Using the regression wizard, estimate the seasonal (quarterly) component of the series and interpret the results